SALE OF PADRES APPROVED

Civic leader Fowler called ‘control person’ of ownership group

“I’m looking forward to having some fun over the next five to 10 years,” said Ron Fowler (right), who will be executive chairman of the Padres after the team’s sale is complete. With him Thursday was fellow new owner Kevin O’Malley. AP

“I’m looking forward to having some fun over the next five to 10 years,” said Ron Fowler (right), who will be executive chairman of the Padres after the team’s sale is complete. With him Thursday was fellow new owner Kevin O’Malley. AP

DENVER 
Call it “The Padres Group.”

That’s how Peter Seidler described the organization that now owns the San Diego Padres.

Major League Baseball identifies the new owners as the “Seidler/O’Malley families and Ron Fowler.”

“However you describe us, let everyone in San Diego know that we are happy to be the owners of the Padres and excited to get going,” Seidler said after Major League Baseball’s other 29 owners quickly approved the sale of the Padres Thursday morning.

The key players in the Padres’ new ownership are four heirs to the O’Malley family that owned the Dodgers for five decades, San Diego businessman and civic leader Ron Fowler and professional golfer Phil Mickelson.

Kevin and Brian O’Malley are the sons of former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley and grandsons of Walter O’Malley, the owner who brought the Dodgers west from Brooklyn after the 1957 season. Peter and Tom Seidler are the nephews of Peter O’Malley.

Fowler, the CEO of Liquid Investments, has been designated the “control person” of the new ownership group and Thursday was identified by Peter Seidler as the group’s “executive chairman.”

The ownership percentages were not detailed Thursday. More details about the structure of the new ownership group and its plans will be made after the purchase from John Moores and the minority owners is completed on or before Aug. 31.

The group’s bid to purchase the Padres originated with the O’Malleys and Seidlers last spring after they failed in an attempt to purchase the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Shortly before that, Moores had put the Padres back on the market after Jeff Moorad’s bid to purchase the team ran into stiff resistance during the pre-approval committee meetings during the January owners meetings. Moorad’s “layaway” purchase of the Padres never reached a final vote, and it was after the January meetings that Moorad withdrew as a buyer and resigned as Padres CEO.

The sale negotiations reopened with Moores owning 50.68 percent of the Padres and the minority owner group put together by Moorad in 2009 owning 49.32 percent. During the negotiations with the O’Malleys, Fowler served as the general partner of the minority owners.

It was during the Seidler-O’Malley talks to purchase the Padres that Fowler became a pivotal player.

“Ron’s our control person,” said Peter Seidler. “I think Ron has a long, great history in San Diego and as significant investors, our family and Ron, we wanted to make our first decision for the franchise reflect the decision making that we’ll hold ourselves to going forward.

“When our family first started thinking about San Diego, and heard there could be an opportunity with the Padres, we looked at it in the context (that) if there’s community enthusiasm, for what we might consider at all levels, among the fans, among an ownership group that we want to put together with local ownership, supportive people that want to maintain long-term stability for the franchise.

“We’ve spent a lot of time with Ron really getting to know him, without talking to him about the Padres deal whatsoever, for months. Talking about our philosophy in owning a baseball franchise, the responsibility that comes with that. It was a very, very easy decision for all of us to make.